Natures wonders: how roots fight compacted soils (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 22, 2021, 22:28 (1158 days ago) @ David Turell

It is all about ethylene gas:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/agriculture/root-problem-in-compact-soil/?utm_source=C...

"An international team of researchers, led by Bipin Pandey from the University of Nottingham, UK – and including researchers from the University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus – found that it isn’t the physical toughness of the ground that stops roots from growing properly, but a hormone signal pathway that acts as a warning signal.

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"Plants release many hormones, which largely affect how, when and where they grow. One of these is ethylene, produced as a gas, which regulates growth and aging of plant organs.

"It would make sense to think that roots in compact soil would stop growing because it’s physically too hard, but the team found the roots were actually responding to the amount of ethylene in the soil.

“'Interestingly, being gaseous in nature, ethylene is easily diffused away from root tips through soil pores,” says Pandey. “Noncompacted soils have large air-filled pores which allow the gaseous exchange from roots to soil.

“'When the soils are compacted, these large soil pores become very narrow and collapsed, thus blocking the diffusion of ethylene from the root tips. Gradually, a large amount of ethylene is trapped near root tips.”

"The ethylene instead “pools” in a more concentrated batch near the root tissue, which sends a feed-back message to the roots to tell them to stop growing so quickly. This means, the authors report, that the concentration of ethylene acts like an early warning signal to the roots to inform them of tough soil.

“'Eventually, poor root growth and thus poor nutrient and water uptake results in severe yield reduction,” says Pandey."

comment: How did the plant find this so-called remedy? Considering Darwinist 'fitness' theories, this is a mistake and a reduction in plant growth. It seems as if evolutionary mechanisms for adaptation didn't work. And from my viewpoint God didn't bother to fix it. Of course it is obvious slower growth prevented root tip damage as a sort of partial solution.